Good Life Project - Claire Hoffman: A Journey Back to Life Transcendent

Episode Date: January 9, 2017

Abandoned by her alcoholic dad when she was five, out of cash and evicted from their NYC apartment, Claire Hoffman, her mom and seven-year-old brother found themselves dropped into a small town in Iowa.But, not just any old town, this was a sacred enclave, Heaven on Earth, established by Transcendental Meditation founder, Maharishi Mahesh. For Claire’s mother, Transcendental Meditation and the cloistered culture around it became a source of salvation and calm. But, over time, Claire began questioning the teachings and traditions. She eventually fled the town, the practice and community and moved back in with her father.Decades later, a now established journalist and teacher and parent, and looking for answers, Claire found herself drawn back to Iowa, to reexamine her spiritual upbringing in an attempt to resolve unanswered questions rediscover a bit of lost magic.In today’s episode, we sit down with Claire and dive into this powerful, raw and revelatory journey, detailed in her memoir, Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood. photo credit: Timothy Greenfield-SandersBe sure to subscribe to our weekly Good Life Updates and listen on iTunes to make sure you never miss an episode! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We went away for like a long weekend up out of the city and with our neighbors. And when we came back, my dad had just left a note and $50 and was like, I went to California. Bye. And, you know, I think my mom probably saw it coming, but couldn't quite believe it was like that. And we got the eviction notice the next day. Imagine waking up one day about five years into life, living in an apartment with your mom and dad and brother on the Upper West Side of New York City,

only to find that your dad has not come home. And shortly after, you, your mom and brother are whisked into the middle of Iowa to become a part of a large spiritual community and all that goes along with that community. That's the story of today's guest, Claire Hoffman. She shares her journey of moving into the Transcendental Meditation community in its very early stages in the United States. And we get deep into what unfolded as she moved to a place called Utopia Park. In fact, it's all detailed in a book called Greetings from Utopia Park. This is not a judgment about

Transcendental Meditation or the community, but we do talk about a lot of touchy topics and conversations. Everything from what Transcendental Meditation is, what the community was about, what some of the promises were around it, and how she responded to it and her family responded to it. She eventually left that community, went out into mainstream American life for a long time. And more recently in her adult life, came back to it because there was a story that needed to be closed. There was a loop that needed to be closed. And we go into this. Really excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields.

This is Good Life Project. We'll be right back. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required,

charge time and actual results will vary. We're hanging on the Upper West Side right now, which if I'm right, this was where you kind of, life kind of started. It's definitely where memories started. Yeah. Were you far from here? We were on West 98th Street. Oh, so literally like a couple blocks started. Yeah. Were you far from here? We were on West 98th Street. Oh, so literally a couple blocks away. Yeah.

What made you settle in the Upper West Side? Especially when you were here, the Upper West Side was not like the Upper West Side now. No. No. I came back here 10 years ago with my mom for the first time since she'd left here in 1983. Yeah. And she was in an almost sort of hallucinatory state taking it in like oh my god we went to our

old building she's like everything is so shiny and new i can't this was not like that you know it was it kind of blew her mind how fixed up everything had gotten yeah i mean it's because the upper it's funny because now for those who don't know the upper west side of manhattan is like it's very nice it's very family it. It's very safe. It's beautiful. But there was a time not that long ago, a couple decades back, where it was not the place to be. Yeah. I think the higher up you went, the harder it got. So 98th Street was definitely... I remember my mom being scared every time we were on the street. How old were you when you were like right around there? Because you were here until five-ish or something like that?

Yeah, I think we moved right before I turned six. And I think we moved here when I was three. Do you have strong memories from that time? I do. It really is like when it kicked in for me. I remember the street. I remember the subway. I remember the school. I remember the park. Riverside Park, like at the end of your block? Yeah. The first, I want to say, three years of my life, my dad was doing his PhD at Columbia.

Oh. So we were on 116th Street. And I remember playing, like at the end of the block, a little water fountain in the summers running around. Yeah. It's beautiful, right? It is. It's a great childhood, that piece of it. Yeah, indeed. So you were hanging out there. Sounds like pretty good life at that time,

from what you knew as a... What were your folks up to at that moment? So let's see. My dad had just graduated from the writer's workshop at University of Iowa, and he had moved us to New York to be a playwright. Was that program in Iowa at that time still held, like in the esteem that it's now held? Was it like the premier program? Yeah, I think he chose it over Yale, which when I was a kid, I was like, I don't get it. Right. But it's like this legendary program. Yeah. And he was sort of pursuing that dream. He had a play that was off-off-Broadway,

but he was also painting houses or apartments for a living. And my mom was going to FIT to do fabric design. But that would be like the base level. But my dad was just drinking all the time. So my mom said the last year in New York, we didn't even really see him. He was just gone all the time. Were you aware of that at all at that age? Not really. I mean, what I remember is more my mom's anxiety when he was around, you know, or the smell. But, you know, I mean, I loved my dad. I thought he was so fun.

How did your mom's anxiety manifest in a way that you really keyed in? What happens often, which happened with me, is, you know, you – when you have a single parent, which she basically already was, you kind of become like an adult with your – so I think she was confiding in me. Right. Like three, four. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, I saw that she was nervous. I mean, I knew she was confiding in me. Right. Age of like three, four. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, I saw that she was nervous. I mean, I knew she was nervous about money. You know, we got an eviction notice right after he took off.

So it wasn't incredibly intuitive of me. I mean, I think there were other things. You know, my mom seemed a little fragile at that time, understandably. And you have an older brother also. Yeah. My brother is two years older than I am. Right. Do you have any recollection of you and him sort of licking each other? Like what's going on or both sharing an understanding about what was going on? You know what I have pieced together is that both my mom and my dad always say this now

to me that my brother and I were so well-beh behaved. You know, I have two toddlers now. I always make this point, like you and Stacey didn't do that, you know, and it's supposed to be like this compliment. But when I go back, I'm like, well, that's because, you know, we couldn't, there was no space for screwing around or having a tantrum or crying. Like we were. Right. You sense that even at that age. Yeah. We were locked in. Yeah. At some point also they started getting involved at that age in meditation and TM. They met before we were born at a transcendental meditation retreat. And my mom had been into it.

She learned when she was like 18 or 19. She had been doing it almost 10 years when she had me. So for her, that was a big part of life. Even when I was little, when we lived here, she would meditate 30 or 40 minutes in the morning and the evening, not so much for my dad. So going to FIT was her dream to then enter that field and be a fabric designer? I think so, yeah. I mean, my mom is a really – I love her art. She's a really original, cool artist, you know, very like chubby, Picasso-y, loose drawing. Just she's really creative. And I remember from back then her always making fabric and doing design, you know, that became less of a priority over time. Yeah. But yeah, I think that was what she would have liked to have done.

So what about you? What kind of a kid were you back then? Besides just really well behaved. Yeah. You know, I think I was in my own world. That is what I both remember and what I've been told. So, you know, I could just kind of disappear into a game or a dollhouse and just be, you know, self-occupied for hours. You know, I fought with my brother, but – That's what older brothers – I have an older sister for two years. It's like, that's kind of what it's about.

It's intense. It's a two-year age difference. It's intense. You know, and he was – my brother was always this kind of brilliant kid. He was really smart and he was a really pretty great-looking kid. So I also felt like he got a lot of attention. So I could kind of be the, like – Sneak under the radar.

Yeah, the under-the-radar kid. That was my perception of it. Who knows? Got it. Yeah. At a certain point, everything comes to a head. Yeah. Tell me about that. We went away for like a long weekend up out of the city and with our neighbors.

And when we came back, my dad had just left a note and $50 and was like, I went to California. Bye. And, you know, I think my mom probably saw it coming, but couldn't quite believe it was like that. And we got the eviction notice the next day. So her sister came up and helped her pack all our stuff. And we put it in storage at my grandfather's house in New Jersey. And we went down to Florida where her mother lived. And we lived there for like eight months. And, you know, my mom was just trying to figure out what to do. You know, it was a hard time. I remember her like kind of locking herself away, crying a lot. And, you know, I think my brother was sleeping on a cot. It was like, you know, it was definitely like touch and go. And then she went while we were staying with my grandmother to visit this place in Iowa. And she came back and she's like, we're deaf. This is it. We're moving there. It's going to be amazing. This is our new life. Go to this amazing place where everybody meditates and creating this sort of utopian world. So what was going through your head back then

when she's sort of describing this? Awesome. Like sweet. Yeah. Sounds great. I mean, my mom coming from here, she was pretty – wanted us in her sight all the time. She was pretty concerned with safety. And I just imagined a world of unlimited freedom where I would just be able to roam outside and ride a bike and just be like a kid from a storybook living in the country. So you guys pack up then. Yeah. We pack up and we move to Fairfield. We move there in the middle of winter. It's like a blizzard. That's my memory of it. And we got there and right away, it like didn't sync up with my mom's description or my memory of my mom's description of what it was going to be like.

It was this little town. I mean, I don't think I'd ever been in a town that small and it was pretty run down and like gray snow drifts and freezing cold and beat up cars. And it just wasn't what I had imagined, being a six-year-old with a fantasy of the Midwest. Yeah. I mean, and also there's the town itself, but also the campus, like the thing that actually brought your mom to want to go there. Describe that a bit to me. It was a work in progress. I mean, they bought the university 1973, 74.

And who's they? Oh, sorry. Yes. So Maharishi Masayuki, who was the founder of the Transcendental Meditation Movement, at this point, it's grown into this worldwide trend or fad movement, whatever you want to call it. And he has sort of a core group of believers, followers who've learned how to teach meditation and are really tuned into him taking courses internationally. My mom did this. And he bought this university in the early 70s in this little town in Iowa. And when he bought it, it was just this totally bankrupt

party school, Parsons, you know, where it was like, I mean, I have friends whose parents went there weirdly, who aren't from Iowa. It was not Parsons as part of New York? No. Okay. No, Parsons College. Got it. Got it. Yeah. And it was just, yeah, there were these funny articles I found from the 60s about just how wild it was. Wild co-eds. Oh, that's too funny. They called it Flunk Out You because it's where you went if you flunked out of any other schools. But so that meant that the school was already kind of in shambles. And then it gets taken over by a guy in India and his like student followers. So by the early 80s, it was, you know, it was pretty crumbled down already. But, you know, there was a lot of vision and ambition. So, you know, they built these two

giant golden dome buildings, which were pretty spectacular, especially as a kid. And these were the places where they practiced advanced forms of meditation, including what they called the flying technique, which was meant to help you hover over the ground. Right. Which we'll get to. I don't want to jump in on it. Right. So you show up and you see this tiny little town and then this campus and some blend of disarray meets big, glorious, giant things in the middle of it. Did your mom have the same lens? Like, did she look at it and see, oh, we've arrived?

Have you talked to her about that? Oh, yeah, yeah. I interviewed my mom a lot for this book. I mean, you know, I think it's a mix. We got there and right away, you know, we had to apply for food stamps because there was no work opportunities, you know. I don't think, you know, coming, you know, from the coast into the Midwest, I mean, just the wages were really low and there was this flood of people coming in. So, work was really hard to find.

So that part was hard and we were in a kind of crummy house and, you know, it wasn't insulated and it was cold. And I mean, there was a lot that was challenging, but on the other hand, there was this incredible energy that she's described. And then I remember of, you know, I mean, it's like, you can't even imagine it. You know, I mean, you've got at this point, this is before the full 7,000 come in the next year, but say 3,000, 4,000 people who are all, you know, in their twenties and thirties who've moved there together. They're all cool college educated kids who are super into meditation and consciousness and have this shared dream that they're changing the world

together. And it's, you know, even though it's hard, it feels fantastic, you know, and they're walking together to these dome buildings to meditate together and they're meditating, you know, three or four hours a day. So it just, I think it felt really good. So in the way that like maybe an example I might use would be camping, which I don't, like sometimes a little rough, but ultimately it can feel pretty great. I think it was like that, like you were roughing it, but it felt good. Yeah, and it's kind of like you belong.

Yeah. You know, there's a community and it's aspirational and it's built around hope and a set of practices that everyone participates in. When she talks about it, I sort of like get a little tingly because it's just, I mean, I can imagine now as an adult living away from anything like that for 20 years, it does sound incredible. I mean, you know, to be able to, you know, walk with your friends and go meditate

together for hours at a time. I mean, it's a dream, you know? And beyond that, you know, I mean, the meditation, I think, made them feel so incredible. They felt so great. They were all kind of on this high together. And there was such a, I mean, part of the sort of philosophy that Maharishi had about this sort of oneness and unity of being. So people felt really connected to each other. So yeah, it just seems like just the best yoga class ever, never ending. And at the same time, I mean, let's zoom the lens out a bit for me. So what's going on in the world of transcendental meditation at that window in time, like bigger picture, what's happening? Yeah. I mean, it was just sort of growing and growing through the 60s and 70s. I mean,

the Beatles, you know, went to Rishikesh in the late 60s and that was like this big moment. And Maharishi, that was the, you know, the famed yogi, this person who started this, who they spent time with. Yeah. And so, you know, for better or worse, that was the sort of notorious moment that got all this publicity, he's on the cover of notorious moment that got all this publicity. He's on the cover of Life and the Saturday Evening Post. And that continues through the 70s. He's on late night shows.

He's the sort of go-to guru, like the most famous and the most sort of commercially savvy. And then in 1977, which is the year I was born, he introduces this advanced TM program. And this is a more expensive meditation technique that takes longer to learn. And it's called the Cities Program, which literally means superpowers. And he touts and advertises that it'll give you these abilities, the strength of an elephant. There's these old advertisements, the ability to walk through walls, and then, of course, to learn to fly. And that was a shrinking moment for the movement. A lot of people who had been totally happy to meditate for 20 minutes in the morning and go about their day weren't on board with this idea of levitating. That was too weird for them. So it kind of closed them off a little bit. That would be my analysis of it. It went from this big kind of pop culture global movement to something that's smaller and more dedicated of true believers. Yeah. I mean, it seems like there was this, the thing that made it expand so much was

an openness and ideology built around sort of an assumption of we are all one and an exploration of expanded consciousness. Who can argue with that, right? Not me. Yeah. I mean, that sounds awesome. Let's all do it. Yeah. And then, so it's interesting that when you sort of, you move from there to, and it can potentially give you superpowers, right? I mean, there's so many shifts in that, like, you know, from a psychological standpoint, you know,

it shifts also, it seems like, I'm curious what your experience of this is. It seems like part of the shift that happened there is not just from, yeah, I can buy into this and participate in it. And to not only can I like, I don't really buy that, but also it's almost like shifting more from service to other service to the world to more egoic in a way. Yeah. And there's people who I know from my mom's generation who would make that criticism, who are true believers, who love Maharishi and who love the basic meditation, but feel like that was a bad choice. And that even the TM City program, no, I should say, you know, I mean, the majority of people, you know, who are moving to Fairfield and the people who are into this, they, I haven't met a lot of people who actually cared about the superpower, you know.

What they cared about and what Maharishi promised was that it would bring you to elevated states of consciousness. But there's these people that I'm referring to also, like there's criticism of that, you know, with like not just the oneness and the being, but suddenly there are seven states of consciousness and you're trying to climb them and achieve higher states of consciousness. And are you just in this state of consciousness? Are you in that state of consciousness? And it's a lot of those people who moved to Fairfield, they wanted to be enlightened. Like that was the goal. It wasn't so much superpowers per se, but existing in these higher states of consciousness. And there was a lot of description, you know, sort of word of mouth and discussion about, you know, like, oh, I had this experience. I think it was cosmic consciousness. I mean, I feel like I heard that all the time growing up of these like different experiences of states of consciousness.

And so, you know, as an adult looking back, I see that dividing, you know, I think it was problematic. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, instead of saying like, great, you're going to meditate and let's not label it or, you know, make it have different levels or have different costs or have some people be more enlightened than others, you know, like just meditate and have the experiences. Why do we have to have all these names for it? You also just mentioned that there were different costs associated. Yes.

Talk to me more about that because I know this has been an interesting sort of conversation within not only the Transcendental Meditation community, but just the sort of meditation and aspirational community in general. Yeah. I mean, there's a few reasons I wrote this book, but one of them is that I think Maharishi was a really early pioneer for better and for worse. And he really was the OG in terms of commercializing Eastern culture. I mean, Ayurveda, meditation, all this stuff. He was the guy who was trademarking stuff early. And bringing it here. And bringing it here. And I think it is important to kind of look at the lessons from it.

Not that they're good or bad, but it's complicated what happens. So when my mom learned to meditate, it cost $35. That's how much it costs to learn to meditate. And that was – I mean, she had know, work at a record store and save up the money to do it, but she figured it out. And, you know, it was extra money. Like you could go on courses to Europe and learn to teach meditation and that costs like $1,500 or something. The TM Cities program, I think from the start, was thousands of dollars. I think maybe $3,000. I learned six years ago and it was, I think, $6, money, although it's come back down, just the basic technique that costs $35. And his answer always was, Americans don't value things unless they pay for them. And this is extremely precious and valuable, so you need to pay for it. clunky explanation. I've heard people now who teach TM just talk about the cost of making a salary as a TM teacher. And that's the cost, which makes more sense to me. Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting. On the one side, I look at that, I'm like, oh, wow,

I don't have a good reaction to that. On the other side, I look at it and so I've been an entrepreneur my entire adult life and a marketer and a studier of the context of that same sentence, you know, if you were buying a car, if you're buying something like this, but when you talk about this something, which is so many people associate it as being like a gift that should be, you know, given to and taught to every person in the world

because the net effect is elevated consciousness, you know, pervasive kindness, compassion, the betterment of humanity, that to put such a high financial barrier on it does a disservice to that bigger goal. And at the same time, I understand the psychology of it. So it's not clean. It's not clean. And it's, I mean, meditation is a special object or product or whatever you want to call it. I mean, I think about, you know, a question I get, well, I special object or product or whatever you want to call it. I mean, I think about, you know, a question I get, well, I've gotten a lot in talking

about the book is, you know, about whether I'm going to have my kids meditate or whether I make them meditate, you know, because I had to, I started meditating when I was three and I had to meditate every day. My meditations were graded for a while in school. And I can't make my daughter meditate. I can make her play the piano. I have zero qualms about that. When she whines about it, I'm like, just play it. It's going to serve you well in the long run, which you could say exactly the same thing about meditation, but I don't think you can force somebody to do it the way you could about a piano. So it's not a religious product necessarily,

but there is something so ephemeral and special about it. And so in terms of assigning it value, in terms of forcing it on people, it's complicated. Yeah. I'm not totally good. I'm a dad also and I have a meditation practice and in a different tradition, but every morning I'm the first one up and I sit and, you know, as my daughter got older, you know, she would come out and just seeing me sitting quiet and I've never, she knows I do it. She knows why I do it. She knows what I do. And so she's exposed to it and she sees the benefits of it. And I kind of feel similar. I'm like, if and when, you know, there's a choice that you want to make to come to it. Awesome. I'll support that. I think

it's great. And at the same time, it's got to come from you. Yeah. It's good to know that it's an option. You know, like if you're a kid who's experiencing anxiety, I think you then, or you're feeling, I mean, the thing that I, that my daughter won't have that I had was, it was truly part of my sense of self from the beginning is that quietness, you know, and I just, I don't know what it is to not have that. I have no experience of that. So she'll have something else. I guess she'll have what other people have. I don't know what that is. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So let's dip back into your story then. So you're there and you're growing up. Your mom is deep into the community.

She eventually saves up money to do the flying trainings. And as you're getting older, sort of moving towards your teen years, what's going on in your head and your experience of living where you were living, experiencing the whole community and kind of hitting a formative stage in your life? Yeah. I mean, so we were living in Utopia Park, which was a meditator-only trailer park on campus. And my brother and I were both going to the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment, which was a kindergarten through 12th grade school that was really, they called it consciousness-based education, and they still call it that, it still exists. It was really just saturated in Maharishi's knowledge in every aspect, every subject, you know, his philosophy came to bear. And we meditated at the beginning and end

of the day. We did school plays from the Ramayana. It was very much Maharishi's vision of an ideal school. And so, you know, a lot of that was beautiful and positive and fun. Over time, I saw how much, you know, so both my brother and I were on scholarship and then she had to work at the school part-time to help supplement the cost of the school. And, you know, it costs whatever, it costs $100 a month to get a badge to go to the dome. And I just saw how my mom was working like always two or three jobs plus meditating three or four hours a day. And I just, I felt like I didn't see her very much. I felt like she was stressed out. You know, as a teenager, I feel like your hypocrisy button gets like really sensitive. And big.

And big. It gets big. I'm scared. It's like hearing it all day long. That's all you see. And so that's what I saw. I saw that this was a community organized around bliss consciousness and 24-hour bliss and all these ideas of just joyfulness and relaxation. It was a meditation community. And yet, my mom was just totally spinning, trying to make it all work and afford it all and stressed out and worried and living month to month. And I think I resented her being stressed out. So my poor mom, every time I see her anxious about something, it's like, I guess that meditation's not working. Nightmare. Not nightmare. It's just like teenager.. It's total teenage. I was, I was, I did my job as a teenager. Right. It just happened to me as sort of like a very extreme, different environment that most of us are used to. Yeah. So as soon as you see any kind of,

and you same with your teachers, you'd push your teacher's buttons as far as you could. You know, at school we were segregated in genders. It was gender segregated. And so, I mean, I remember like these female teachers crying and like, you know, we'd get them to cry. The boys would get their like male teachers to like freak out and get angry. Like we would push them just to see the emotion because there was such an emphasis on like a flat kind of happiness, you know, only positive thinking. I was often sort of corrected to think if there was a way to say something positively, you know, there was no negativity was allowed. And so that kind of tightness, you know, as a teenager, you really push against it.

Where did that lead you? I mean, you know, kids in the school, I ended up going to public school and kids in the school Where did that lead you? and ended up, you know, following all the rules and probably marrying each other, you know, marrying classmates and staying in this sort of bubble of belief. And then there was the rest of us who, to varying degrees, rebelled. You know, so we were sneaking out at night. We were drinking. We were doing drugs. We were having sex.

We were hanging out with the townies who were non-meditators. And we just loved everything that wasn't meditation. You know, like the townies were these like sort of other world of, you know, metal music and beer and eating meat. You know, it was like. It's like just a checklist of everything that you couldn't do. Yeah. Art rated movies. Right.

Smoking cigarettes, you know. Which is all against like, okay, so normal teenage stuff like you just happened to – the contrast in your world was so much more extreme than your average teenager. Because it was extreme on the positive end, you know, kids went hard, you know, like taking 12 hits of acid and like trying to bomb the post office, throwing ninja stars into the school. I mean, not on PCP. This is not me. I'm just saying generally. You've heard stories. I've heard about people who might do that.

You knew people. Maybe. No names. I can't remember any names. Yeah. So it got really wild on the other side. And at the same time, for me, I think I felt alienated because, you know, I was going to now to the public high school and the townies were suspicious of me because I wasn't like them. And-

They must have been suspicious about the fact that there was this whole thing. Oh, yeah. That seemed just like alien. I mean, that's the story in and to itself. I mean, there was all sorts of fights and, you know, yeah, like cars with windows smashed, you know, just there's a long history of that. I think it's gotten much better. I mean, now it's been whatever, 40 years or so. So it's, I've heard that it's much more friendly, but, you know, in the 80s and 90s, it was not. So I think I felt really of neither world. I was sort of ejected financially because we couldn't afford to go to the Maharishi School anymore, but we're still living in Utopia Park.

Is that why you ended up in public school? Yeah. Got it. So we were still living in Utopia Park. So I have to go to school from Utopia Park to the public high school. And there's kids there that are also from the Marishi school. They raised the prices. So a bunch of kids kind of went out at once, but I felt like I really just wanted to get out. You know, as I said, like the dark kept getting darker, like kids around me were becoming kind of more and more rebellious. And I think I just, you know, at this time,

I should say my dad came back into our life when I was, he came back when I was 12 and he'd gotten sober and he lived in Iowa for a couple of years and then he moved to California and he was sort of always encouraging me like, you need to get out, you know? So I really attached myself to that vision of kind of going to college outside of Iowa and leaving this world behind. Yeah. So you eventually moved out to be with him when you were 17? Yeah. I moved to Los Angeles and then I ended up going to UC Santa Cruz. Right. When you made that break, was it – I mean, it sounds like you've always stayed – you stayed close with your mom, but you broke from this tradition. And was it fairly clean at that point or was it like a progression?

The break? Yeah. It is never clean. You know, I mean, there's, I would say even I remember being 24 and sort of, you know, talking about my boyfriend at the time who was like my college boyfriend. And I was like, well, could I marry somebody who didn't grow up meditating? Like it was pretty deep, you know? And I still meditated, you know, it was still something that as much as it felt co-opted by this world that I'd found hypocritical, you know, it was part of who I was. And it was sort of still like a really powerful centering mechanism for me. But more and more from afar, the TM movement,

I didn't feel connected to what was going on and what was happening. I mean, during this time, as I was like a teenager and becoming more rebellious, I would describe the TM movement and Maharishi as getting more and more sort of fundamentalist. You can start that a little bit. What? Well, a couple of things are happening. First of all more and more sort of fundamentalist. Can you construct that a little bit? Well, a couple of things are happening. First of all, he's sort of commodifying all these different ways of living, right? So, you know, Ayurveda being the first one that came out in the 80s is sort of the practice of Vedic health. So it was all Vedic. You know, he became sort of obsessed with instituting Vedic knowledge into the world,

like that was going to be the path to world peace, not meditation so much, but all these other practices. So, you know, there was the health, there was the music and Narva Veda, there was Tapacha Veda, which became, you know, by the 90s, like a big fixation and always fundraising, right? You know, it was always these huge fundraising projects. So for Stepache Veda, there's these plans to build these huge monuments and they had brochures printed up that showed Paris reorganized according to his principles of architecture. In Fairfield itself, suddenly all real estate that had a south-facing door, which was considered sort of inauspicious, was worth nothing.

Wow. I mean, people were even – I mean, this was when I was still in high school. People would park their cars so that they didn't get out the door facing south. Obviously, I know you've had this conversation, but I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the word, which is cult. And again, this is complicated, what the definition of that is and also the multi-layers of the fundamental practices versus the organization versus the players at different levels versus sort of like the bigger institution. But when you start to have so much control over literally every breath that people take and every move they make and every decision that they make,

that it controls what door of the car they'll get out of what, and you have to ask the question. And I know you did ask the question and I know you've been asked the question and, and, and compelled to potentially use the word or not use the word. So without either one of us labeling yes or no, this is a cult. Just take me into the exploration a little bit. Well, you know, what's cool about it is that just in talking about the car thing, I mean, Maharishi, he didn't come back. He came in 1983 when all these people moved in and then he never came back. So it was a true sort of Wizard of Oz scenario, right? He's telecasting in from India or later on the Netherlands, but he never comes back. And so his knowledge and his advice or whatever you want to call it for a living kind of trickled

in through top donors who had access to him or, you know, top administration officials who had been promoted. You know, were those people in control? Yes and no, because I also think like they were believers, you know, they were also deciding to do it. Nobody told them that they would be punished in some way if they got out of the car. It was choices they made. It was their belief in his vision that made people do it. So I see the culpability really shared. We were crazy. He was crazy. We were crazy. Who was crazier? So as far as a cult, it's a funky term to say the least. The easiest thing I can say is that we could have left at any time and I did leave when I wanted to. There was no escaping. I mean, to a ridiculous degree, no one cared when I left. I mean, like to like a ridiculous degree, like no one cared when I left, you know, I mean, have I gotten pushback for writing about it? Yes. You know, like there is some like sort of speaking truth to power there. Like there is a power structure, you know, there

is a sort of understanding of who gets to speak for the movement, you know, and should I be able to describe this experience that I had sort of at a lower rung. Right. Which also brings up the, like the notion of secrecy, you know, so a lot is known now and a lot is shared publicly. And at the same time, on the most fundamental level, the practice itself has always been held secret and your mantra has always been, you know, you're sworn to secrecy for life. So like the most fundamental thing that every single person

would do twice a day as part of the practice, you know, is sworn to secrecy. Yeah. You know, secrecy is, I have been thinking about this lately and it just, it kind of breeds problems, unfortunately, you know, and that said, like, my husband doesn't know my mantra. You know, I'm not going to tell you like, I don't say it. I keep it like I keep that secret. And yet, the secrets are layered on top of each other. There are things that are not in that book. You know, there's all sorts of things I didn't put in that book, because people feel so protective of them. And you know, the secret, sacred binary is an interesting teach it, then you're a teacher. That's a higher sort of power. You know, there's like in Fairfield, there's like a secret temple and only special people get to know.

It becomes sort of pervasive. And you see it in – it's universal. You see it in all religions where it's like the secret is magical and powerful, but it's also dangerous. It is. It's across every spiritual tradition, every faith-based tradition. There are elements of, you know, this is a special handshake. This is the, you know, there are rituals, there are symbols, there are practices that are deemed for only for those who are within the community.

It's not, you know, exclusive to Transcendental Meditation. If you look at almost every tradition, you're going to find that. Because I've thought about, I wonder often if the fact that it's secret, it opens up the opportunity to then overlay nefarious cause or somehow like this. But the truth is, it's anywhere. I mean, you go to the local trade organization, the local league, the local, everyone's got their secret stuff where they do that they don't want anyone else to know, because come on, we're cool, because only we know it. It's like this thing. It's funny, I've thought a lot about cults and that word and that label over the years also,

and trying to differentiate between just a really hyper-connected community where there's a strong sense of belonging and a cult. And the closest I've come up with, because as soon as you label something a cult, everyone assumes, okay, now that's negative. That turns whatever it is into something bad. And the two defining things that come to me, and I'm curious what your experience of these two would be, isolating the members from everyone outside the membership and an emphasis on practices and ideology that disempower autonomy rather than seek to preserve autonomy and self identity. To me, those are like the two, the big giveaways. Yeah, it is interesting because the, you know, I mean, if you see this creation of this advanced techniques in the TM movement, the big idea behind it and the big idea of Fairfield was that group meditation had this power, right? So suddenly it's not about just

practicing this meditation on your own. It's about the power of the group. You need to be in a group to do it. And so it is this move away from the really kind of cool part of meditation, which is just that it's just you, you know, and it kind of takes it into this. It's about the group and the group effect and group consciousness. Yeah. There were some pretty big claims made about the group effect over the years also. Yeah. The Marishi effect. Yeah. Yeah. He had a mathematical formula. I mean, I see the question of the cult is like there's something there that's sort of at the heart of religion. I mean, a cult is a label created by insiders to label outsiders even, right? So there's – like cult is a term come like baked by the sort of mainstream Christianity to label fringe movements and

say that's not us, you know, right? That's its history. Oh, that's interesting. But it's still – I feel like religious scholars don't want to like totally throw it away because there is something about these groups that get isolated and disempowered and have a leader and have, you know, kind of end up in these magical thinking places. But there is to me that having lived in a community that was a little bit isolated, not entirely, and that, you know, was full of, in my opinion, a lot of really intelligent people who believed a really pretty unbelievable stuff.

You know, I see how that can feel so fantastic. Like I really, and that's part of why I wanted to write the book is like, I think, you know, for people who haven't been through something like that, they think that these are people who have like faulty intellects or something that end up in these or they're weak or whatever it is. There's some brilliant people. Right. I mean, there's nothing cognitively dull about so many people who practice every day. No. And having been there, you know, I mean, there were totally boring, lame people, trust me, but there were a lot of like really bright, creative, wonderful people me, but there were a lot of like really bright, creative, wonderful people. And I still have a lot of close friends that came out of it.

But, you know, to be inside of it and to feel like you're a part of it, you know, there's nothing better. And yet to feel pushed out by it or to not believe in it, there's nothing worse. So it's that real, that inside outside aspect. I mean, I think that's the thing with secrecy. Yeah. It's that sense of we are hardwired psychologically and physiologically to have to belong. There's no getting around it. It's part of our DNA. There's like DNA strands that say you must belong basically. And who knows where that came from? There's all sorts of theories about it being, well, it was survival originally, because if you were outcast and alone, you were dead. So we literally biologically kind of moved in that way. But the interesting thing to me is there is a certain amount of grace that comes from giving up a thin slice of individuality in the name of

belonging, which is amazing, which makes you feel good. You're part of something. There's a community where you feel like, these are my people. They get me. I can drop the shields. And most of us, if we find that, we are willing to give up a teeny bit of self-identity. And I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. The question for me is, where along that spectrum does it turn from you're benefiting from the grace of belonging. So you're willing to give up a little bit and it's okay to now you've crossed over to the place where you've literally subverted your individuality in the name of something where it's now actually destructive. And there's no bright line test there. But I think when you're clearly on one side. Yeah. To me, there's like a, you know it when you see it kind of thing. I mean, I have like a real like sensitivity to it. So I'm like, I'm, I've never going to belong to anything, unfortunately. But for me, you know, as soon as somebody stands slightly higher on a stage and tells, you know, a group of people about an experience where they've seen the truth.

And you haven't seen the truth, but let me describe this truth to you. I know the truth. I know the way. I've seen something that you don't see, but do what I did and you'll get there right away. That's to me the problem. The same thing is where any kind of wanting to touch a person, like a person becomes enveloped in holiness. I went to a meditation retreat for a number of years with this guy who seemed really low-key Buddhist. He'd give lectures and I didn't get a lot of ego. Then one day, this woman fell on the ground behind him and kissed the ground that he had walked on. I was like, I I got to go. Like, that's it. He's probably the same, but I can't be here. You know, as soon as they're like, it's their aura or they've got like some extra human power. Yeah. I don't like it. But here's where I think it gets complicated though, which is that if it's that person putting that message into the world, I get the creepy crawlies too.

Yeah. If it's that very same person just kind of saying, you know, like, I figured out some stuff that's worked for world, I get the creepy crawlies too. If it's that very same person just kind of saying, I figured out some stuff that's worked for me, try it. And maybe it works for you, maybe it doesn't, but test it. And if it does, awesome, do it. And look, I'm one of you. I'm not elevated in any way, but I've just been leaning into this a lot. Give it a shot, see how it feels for you. If the idea works, awesome. If it doesn't, that's awesome too. And then others would follow and place on that person sort of an aura or, you know, an elevated status that that person never asked for.

I think that's where it gets really. Yeah. I agree. And I think the thing that I'm talking about is where it's like, it's the capital T truth. It's not like, hey, I love mountain biking and it feels great and I do it on Saturdays. You should try mountain biking. It's like mountain biking is the way, not mountain biking is not. It's the weird thing about writing this book and having these conversations is that like, I'm a person who wants to improve. I have the self-improvement thing like everybody else, and I want to change and be better. But I also feel this tension with like being okay with what is. And I get nervous when I see, you know, friends or loved ones kind of talk about progressing, you know, or changing in this way where they kind of become this new person where they're going to be, you know, they're going to leave behind all the flaws that they have, you know, and get away from it. And it's almost like kind of revulsion for that version of themselves. And they talk about this idealized state that they

want to reach. And it totally, you know, gives me like PTSD. Because I'm like, you know, that is a path of misery, you know? Yeah, there's no there there. Yeah, there's no there there. Like, of course like of course like you know we should all do things to make our lives better and be interested in new things and interested in change but that binary that i see so much especially you know frankly in americans you know i don't see it quite as much in other cultures but i feel like in America, there's that real virtue and vice thing, right? Like, oh God, I'm so stressed out. I need to go on a 30-day meditation retreat, and then I'll be a new person. And I won't be this stress person anymore. I'll be this awesome, relaxed person. It's like a ladder.

Yeah, it is a ladder. That you have to climb rather. It's just, yeah. It's like a ladder. Yeah, it is a ladder. That you have to climb rather. It's just, yeah. I think finding the grace in this, like in this moment and then this moment and this moment is the becoming. Yeah. But we're just, we're so willing to subvert that in the name of getting there. Right. Rather than finding it just, or just not even finding it, but just owning the fact that it is here already yeah mayday mayday we've been compromised the pilot's a hitman i knew you were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know it's a difference between me and you you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot flight risk the apple watch series 10 Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

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Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. We are weird people. I know. But here's my question now. I'm curious whether you've explored this. The way that I think my sense is a lot of, especially Eastern-based traditions have landed in the US, is not the way that they're practiced in their countries and traditions of origin. So I wonder if a lot of that is really, it's the way that we pursue

a path where that pursued by people who've been doing it for generations and generations is pursued profoundly differently. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting point. I don't think I know that much about it. I mean, as much as I grew up in this sort of like faux Indian world, I've never been to India. So it's sort of theoretical to me. I mean, I mean, I think, I mean, my sense from some of the things that I experienced through Maharishi is that it's an imperfect world, too. You know, I mean, you have the caste system, you have people who are, you know, of a spiritual caste who are sort of able to go or separated off. And you have people who are untouchable, who can't cross that. I mean, I think it's flawed. People are crazy everywhere. That's my theory

until I'm proved wrong. To be the next book, people are crazy everywhere. It's like a big seller. Right. Yeah. A true to life story. Exactly. Yeah. So it's interesting that after moving out of this, kind of going back into mainstream life, you end up in divinity school. Yeah. What's that about? I mean, you know, even I was an anthropology major in college and I think I've always sort

of naturally been like an observant. I was an observant kid and I sort of had this experience of being pushed out a little bit as a teenager. And so I've always had the kind of like from the sidelines perspective and enjoyed watching people. And, you know, growing up where I did, I mean, you see the power of belief, you know, I mean, it's so transformative. And so, you know, I just was fascinated by it. And so I, you know, I thought about going back and doing like a PhD in religion, but divinity school was, it was academic. And, you know, I think there's just these patterns to what happens in belief communities and how communities transform, how they survive, how power is transferred. And I just love that at the core of it is these incredible personal experiences. I don't know anything like that, really, besides love. I think just religion is totally awesome in that way. Yeah, and you can say love is the ultimate divinity. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I mean, I think it's such a cool part of the human experiment. So I loved it.

You know, I knew that I wanted to be a reporter. So I went from Divinity School to the LA Times. I always tried to do religion stories as much as I could. You did Columbia J School also, right? Yes. Right. Yeah. So you're kind of moving on with your life, but you're still touching it. There's this through line that's always been there, even though it's not through that original community or necessarily through the practices. But you're deeply curious about the human condition and belief and how it affects it, and you want to observe and report on it. What makes you come full circle at this point to say, I need to go back my older daughter, Josie, and I just felt kind of all mixed up in that first year, which many new parents do. But I felt an incredible nostalgia for the past and for a lot of things that I had given up, you know, like I sort of suddenly from where I was sitting, a lot of that looked really good. It didn't look perfect. I wasn't going to move our family back to Iowa. But, you know, I mean, it was a complicated mix of things. I mean, first of all, you know, when I was growing up, my mom referred to like everyone else as Americans, right? Like we weren't Americans, they were Americans. They were Americans. And there was a part of me where I was like, oh my God, like, I've become an American. I'm microwaving my food. I'm drinking wine. Like, the TV's on. The dog is barking. Our house smells like meat, you know, which just was not, you know. I grew up in a,

you know, a house that smelled like curry and, like, people were barefoot and it was really quiet. There was no TV, which I couldn't wait to get rid of. But then suddenly, you know, you have a kid. And for me, I think I felt this desire to really, you know, of course, not screw her up, but also like really preserve, you know, the like sort of magicalness that you can almost see radiating off of a new baby. And, you know, I just wanted to have some of that belief and utopianism in her life, you know, and I didn't know exactly how to do it. And I think I was also struggling with my own happiness, you know, I mean, at this point, I was a magazine reporter. I'd been a newspaper reporter and I was sort of surrounded by a lot of

agnostic or atheist people who had no sort of religious or spiritual life and who were pretty cynical about it. And as was I, but I sort of had this special place in my heart for it at the same time, the same kind of like yearning. So I went back when Josie, her first, right after her first birthday, and I took the TM City program. I took the month long. The thing that made you roll your eyes. Exactly. When your mom was like learning it as a kid. I mean, you know, you can't imagine what my eyes were doing that whole month. It was like, wait, I paid five, $6,000 to be here and left my family. But this is totally crazy. And describe like what's this called?

It's called the flying course. Right. Yeah. And what's sort of like the promise that goes along with that? Well, and I should even say before that I was like, you know, I had to apply to get in. I sort of had to like write a letter renouncing my wild ways as a teenager, you know. And, you know, then you get in this group and there's a lot of – it was a mix. I mean, a lot of, you know, it was in Fairfield, it was on the campus. You're staying in these campus buildings, some of which I remember from my childhood. And suddenly I'm back in them and sleeping.

So I'm like far away from my husband and my daughter and my life, and I'm back in. Right. But your mom is still there, right? My mom is there as we speak. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, she was there. She lives there. She doesn't live in Utopia Park anymore.

She lives off campus. Thank God. So you're in this program. Yeah. And so it just immediately I just immediately, I'm kind of like a sulky teenager, but I'm also like, you know, it's total, I don't know if you swear on your podcast. It was total mind fuck because it's like, I paid for it. I came back, like I've taken all this time professionally to do that, like away from my professional life, away from my daughter.

And then I'm there and I'm like rolling my eyes and I'm irritated with my mom. And these people are so over the top and annoying. And I can't believe I've allowed myself to be like to submit to them. And yet I have to, like, I want something they have. I want this like intangible growth or experience or transcendence that they're promising that ultimately somewhere deep down inside I believe in. So, you know, I mean, it was totally bizarre. It was a strange month of my life. I mean, you know, we're in these buildings and then you'd see like faculty and staff that I recognized. And, you know, it was sort of like, oh, is that, you know, Mr. Munson? Wait, it can't be Mr. Munson because that looks like Mr. Munson 20 years ago,

but it is Mr. Munson because Mr. Munson hasn't aged because he's been meditating like a third of his life. I mean, a lot of these people, just their skin looks fantastic, you know? I mean, if nothing else, they look great. My mom looks great. I'm not saying that's why I went back. But and, you know, I mean, the flying was really hard for me. It was a real sort of struggle. And ultimately, I had a experience that was profound and transcendent for me. But it was a struggle and it changed me. And I don't do the technique anymore, not out of some big philosophical reason, but just didn't feel right when I left the group. It felt too weird and too strange to do. And so ultimately that experience that month, I mean, we were meditating like up to seven or eight hours a day. That experience did sort of deepen my meditations. And I, you know, I'm much more of a regular meditator now and I really enjoy my meditations more. So I'm thankful for that. Did you get what you came for? I did. I did. You know what I mean? I think I probably

thought like those people I was just making fun of that I might come back a whole new person, but I think it helped me let go of that a little bit. And it also made me really, because I had some really profound experiences while I was there doing things that seemed absolutely absurd, I saw the way in which you have to kind of let go of that logical part of your mind and you have to kind of let go of doubt and questions. You have to kind of leap over them in order to have these big, expansive experiences. And I don't think you should let go of them forever, but I think they are a hindrance in the moment. Is it more about believing or being open to the possibility of

belief? What is the difference? I think one is just saying I'm in, whereas the other is saying I'm open. I think to me, they're like kind of qualitatively different. I had this conversation with somebody who's a spiritual teacher who I did some work with and I showed up and I did the work and I didn't feel, I didn't get what I came for. And we had a conversation about that afterwards and the invitation was made to me. You say you came being open to this, but the whole time it felt like you were just waiting for the evidence to be convinced. Whereas if you came and said, yes, I believe this can give me what I need, then you would have gotten what you need, which is a struggle for me. I mean, you know, when I think about being in the flying course in this room,

and there's slowly the people who fly are being moved out, right? So it's like incredible dwindling party of losers and non-believers, right? That's how it felt. You're like, oh, man, I'm still in the ring. Exactly. Oh, 100%. And I was like, of course, I'm going to be the last person in this room because I have the darkest soul and the ultimate jerk cynic. And so, I felt really in that struggle. And I don't think it appears well on the written page. I didn't want to go on about it in the book, but that struggle over those days in that, I think that, you know, for me, doubt is both a hindrance and like the greatest thing in my life. You know what I mean? Doubt got me out. That sounds like a phrase, but it like, it got me. I feel like it has like really stood me in good

stead. And yet, you know, I see these people around me who seem like they're able to be free or unencumbered in a way that doubt doesn't allow. Ultimately, it can be noise in your head. And I was so tired of that. I was so fed up with that voice of questioning. I'm a journalist and I'm a jerk. I just was so tired of that part and I didn't believe in it really anymore. I actually was starting to lose faith in the doubt, if that makes sense. And so, did I believe ever purely? No, I don't think I did. But I think I just got to a place of like release of quietness. And that allowed me to have a powerful experience, which was so fleeting. You know, but when you go back to LA, right? It's like dogs barking, kids crying, you know, it's like stuff to do.

But I guess that's the big question now. It's like, how do you take that back when you're, you know, it's one thing to feel that when you're in this utopian place away from everyone, where every single aspect of your daily existence is built around the ability to be in that state, you know, and then that's the big question for me is always, if you go and retreat, then when you drop back into everyday life in LA or New York or Chicago or Austria, wherever you may be in the world, how do you bring as much of that back to the life of a householder as you can?

It's one of the things that always fascinated me about Buddhist tradition is that there are these well-defined paths. There's monastic and there's a householder. And it basically said, okay, you can still be cool if you just want to live an everyday life and kind of like here are the practices that make it okay. Yeah. I mean, I find daily meditation does help. I mean, I don't have the answer. I'll tell you that right now. But I think the thing that I have been doing in those five years since I went is really trying to see the things that I saw as boring or shitty or wrong, like this isn't going the way I thought it should as like the moments to kind of lean into almost as if they were these utopian experiences you know what i mean so it's like instead of you know when the dog is barking and the kid is crying to be like it's like like what if that's like the that's your time to kind of like lean in and try and feel that quietness. I feel like that for me, that stress feeling,

which I mean I'm a sensitive person who grew up in a utopian community. I totally get stressed out and yet pursue a somewhat stressful life. I think that I try to make that feel like it's part of the practice, like feel like a meditation of itself, which I feel like the Buddhists might have something like that. Yeah. I mean, I haven't taken vows, but I spent some time studying, but that feels pretty similar.

It's sort of like there's the practices to actually just let it all in and then let it all through. Yeah. You know, it's a practice in non-grasping. Yeah. And I think that is like it's the differentiating that can feel problematic. And yet, like the truth is sometimes you do need to go away and be quiet. You know, you got to turn off your phone.

You got to like step away from everything. You got to touch stone. And feel like be reminded of that feeling of like quietness and self so that you can kind of bring it back, you know, and you know, like when you've gone too long without it. But yeah, I think it is sort of like letting it the sort of hubbub of daily life also be a place of no thought or as much as possible. Yeah. So let's come full circle to the name of this is Good Life Project. So if I offer that term out to you to live a good life, what bubbles up? What comes up to you? You know, it means a couple of different things to me. I think it's both, I would say, a virtuous life and in that sense of like sort of a life of doing good for others. And then it's also a life that is one of pleasure. So I don't think you can have

one without the other. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for listening. We love sharing real unscripted conversations and ideas that matter. And if you enjoy that too, and if you enjoy what we're up to, I'd be so grateful if you would take just a few seconds and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out. You can actually do that now right from the podcast app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the reviews tab and take a few seconds and jam over there. And if you haven't yet subscribed while you're there, then make sure you hit the subscribe button while you're at it. And then you'll be sure to never miss out on any of our incredible guests or conversations or riffs. And for those of you, our awesome community who are on other platforms, any love that you might be able to offer sharing our message would just be so appreciated.

Until next time, this is Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. Making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Actual results will vary.